For PhD students and postdocs, a strong professional network is be one of your most important assets. In fact, the Office of Career Strategy recommends that you spend a significant portion of your career development efforts towards developing professional connections. Networking gives you the opportunity to:
- Learn about careers, job functions and workplace cultures
- Build your communications and interviewing skills
- Develop your professional narrative and practice explaining the relevance of your skill set
- Ask questions about the most important skills in your career of interest so that you can strategically build those skills while at Yale
- Get on the inside track to hiring decisions; numerous studies report that the percentage of jobs gotten through networking is surprisingly high.
